The Sustut never got the press the other Skeena rivers did in my memory but it loomed large as a storied place with great steelhead. Therefore there was a sense of euphoria on seeing these pictures. They embody the Pacific Northwest in the nostalgia I have for the region as a kid. It was a wild, mostly roadless back in the 60s and 70s that was just becoming known for its steelhead. Since then roads, logging, and salmonid declines have removed some of the luster but it is still a fantastic place I will never see.
An all too common scenario follows. Thompson steelhead may be the pinnacle of what a steelhead is and they are close to blinking out. When I was in Calgary I was jonesing to fish the Thompson but never did.
RIP Thompson Steelhead
If we ever thought we’d seen it all with respect to mismanagement of Thompson steelhead (aka Interior Fraser Steelhead), this one takes it to new heights. Yet another classification for gill net fisheries for the exclusive benefit of a First Nation emerges. It wasn’t enough we had economic opportunity fisheries, demonstration fisheries and, of course, food, social and ceremonial fisheries. Now we can add “economic trial” fisheries to the mix.Check out the latest notice posted on the DFO Fisheries Notices web site on October 28, 2026. Note that the word steelhead does not appear anywhere. However, there’s a full page devoted to marine mammals and sea birds plus lost and retrieved gear. Standard stuff, of course, but how does anyone involved pass the red face test given the endangered status of a resource once touted as the best of the best wild steelhead on planet earth?Not to worry, though, the notice specifies All non-target species will be released back to the water alive and unharmed. Someone please let us know how gill net caught steelhead are unharmed, if not dead when released. And that’s with all the caveats like short nets, short sets, operating revival tanks, and on the grounds monitors that are applied to gill net fisheries authorized by DFO elsewhere (Skeena) that are effectively absent here. No monitors or observers in the designated fishing area, only vessels in excess of 30’ required to have revival tanks and only chum salmon catches reported and sampled by their own shore-based record keepers after the fact.
Here’s the latest (Oct 15) on the status of Thompson steelhead. Other than the Chilcotin that gets the equivalent of honorable mention in the occasional in-season reminders of how close to extirpation Thompson fish are, the other components of the Interior Fraser Steelhead stock mix (Nahatlatch, Bridge, Seton, Stein) are so far off the fisheries management radar their names are found in documents soon to be relegated to archives and the memories of a steadily declining audience old enough to have known them. Think about it. In less than one human lifetime we’ve managed to preside over a resource that has gone from world renowned status to lost and forgotten. And we’re contributing to this for chum salmon harvest opportunities for what is arguably the wealthiest First Nation in British Columbia? How many others of the multiple First Nations between the mouth of the Fraser and the first 100 km upstream where all those chum originate are entitled to follow suit?
Things are bad all over.